Monthly Archives: June 2014

Welcome to my first installment of what I am hoping to be a regular feature here at Vikings Territory. Essentially, “The Other Guys” is an effort to take a look at the other teams in the NFC North and see what is happening with them. After all, they are enemy number one, and our success can often directly correlate with their failure.

DETROIT LIONS

It sounds like the acquisition of Golden Tate had more to do with his talents as a wide out than what he can offer on special teams. Only Dexter McCluster saw more punt returns last season than Tate did, but he has already conceded that the position still belongs to incumbent Jeremy Ross. Additionally, Reggie Bush likes to think he has “graduated” from his return duty days and doesn’t plan on picking that habit back up anytime soon. The news about Ross and his stronghold on the return man gig in Detroit is perhaps the first position battle in the league to sort itself out this offseason.

The Star Tribune has a great piece on the Super Bowl LII bid that the Twin Cities put together and what the NFL demanded of the various bid groups before they could truthfully compete for the right to host the Super Bowl.

Before listing what the NFL required of the host committee, a few things should be noted:

The host committee only agreed to accommodate a “majority” of the demands

US Bancorp will pay $30 million of the cost of the accommodations that would normally be public costs

The host committee believes that the whole of the cost of these accommodations will be met privately, at no cost to the city

It’s still kind of shady because the city did not see the demands that the host committee agreed to

My guess is that the city will likely be in talks with the host committee to determine what they will and will not accommodate

What they end up agreeing to will likely end up being exactly the same as what they would have agreed to if they could have seen the demands

I still don’t like it because the city should, as a rule, see what is being agreed to on their behalf

The Star Tribune has the entire set of demands listed on the article linked (if you’ve hit your limit on articles viewed, just view the article in “privacy mode”), but the demands are 150+ pages. Instead, you can look below at what the Strib ID’d as the most interesting requirements.

Per TMZ Sports, which has had an unfortunately greater presence in the last year and a half of sports reporting, Jerome Simpson performed 135 hours of community service.

The only reason this is interesting is that he was only required to perform 120 hours by court order following his 2013 DWI arrest in November.

Simpson’s community service consisted mostly of speaking to children at the P.E.A.S.E. Academy, a high school geared towards kids struggling with addiction. The director of the program said Simpson went “above and beyond” for the kids, and it seems like he genuinely loved the work that he was doing for them.

Simpson was sentenced to community service for violating the terms of his parole (in Kentucky). He will remain on parole until 2016.

I think fans were a little surprised that he was kept on the roster after his DWI—me included—but I think it will help more than hurt that he’s on the roster in 2014.

The ideal situation for the Vikings secondary probably involves Xavier Rhodes and Captain Munnerlyn staying healthy with Josh Robinson progressing in a meaningful enough way to make him the clear cut number three.

Last offseason, Cox was a hot commodity as an unrestricted free agent and he jetted across the country to play for San Diego after a productive first four seasons in Jacksonville. He signed a four year deal with the Chargers worth $20 million, but disappointment followed shortly when he was unproductive enough to be benched and then released this offseason.

Sorry for being a few days behind on the normal rotation here. The links are few days late partly because of a lack of links out there (slow news week), but mostly because of laziness. Here is the best of the best, however, from around the net. Go check them out and tell ‘em who sent ya: